


Rose

by Pixeled



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Anger, Death, Gen, Grimoire Valentine's relationship with his wife, Headcanons that Vincent's mom was Wutain, Love, Regrets, Vincent's mother, angry at the world, dying regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21658222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: As he lay dying, he saw her face and his overlaid. He saw his failures. His grief.“Tell my son,” he rasped. “Tell my son I love him.”
Relationships: Grimoire Valentine/Vincent Valentine's Mother
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	Rose

**Author's Note:**

> This is butteredbandits' fault for enabling me and my headcanons about Vincent's parents and his past. It came up that Vincent's mom was probably Wutain and I ran with it. This is the end result.

Her name was Mei. 

Grimoire remembered when he first laid eyes on her. He had traveled to Wutai to get away, to see a land that wasn’t bogged down in technology. He was sick of numbers and spreadsheets and scientific facts. He knew he wouldn’t be for long, though. His work was his life and he loved it fiercely.

Before he went to Wutai, all he cared about were numbers and figures and facts and science and reason. 

Then he met her. 

Her name meant “rose”. She was as beautiful as one. Long black hair the color of midnight. Her eyes, so black and large and captivating, drew him in like he was a mariner sent to shipwreck over the storm of her heart. They were so black they were almost like mirrors, reflecting his heart. He remembered how severe her bangs were, how pin straight and silky her hair was as it slipped over her shoulder, just barely visible. When he met her, she was wearing a kimono. She was pouring him tea from a centuries-old pot and telling him about its history. She lived in facts too, the hard reality of lives long gone and past. 

He fell in love with her hard.

She was from a simple family. They lived far away in the countryside. She lived in the city. They would barely miss her, and he had to have her. 

He spent months in Wutai—months he didn’t have to spend on seemingly frivolous things. He had work to get back to, science and reason to get back to, not love. And yet it was love he chose to spend his time on.

The first time they made love it was sweet and slow and perfect. He was addicted to her. She had a sadness about her. She cared about things too much. She wept at things like the way the moon looked at night. He had never stopped to admire the beauty in simple things until he met her. Yes, he cared about his work, and saw the practicality in it, but he never stopped to truly wonder at it like he had as a boy. The excitement he once felt about everything that made the world turn came back to him and he found himself explaining the whys and hows to her. 

She became pregnant, and then he knew. They hadn’t been careful.

This life was all she knew, but he talked so much about Midgar, a passion in his eyes, that she fell in love with it too.

The first time they said “I love you” it was under the stars. He was idly telling her about the constellations. He’d bought a telescope for the occasion, wanting to impress her. She stared at the moon and fell in love with it. She turned to him, laughing, and said, “I love you, Grimoire.”

He said it back.

So they went to Midgar.

They were so happy. Grimoire’s heart was tamed by her love. They would raise their child in a great city, on the cutting edge of life. Grimoire worked with more ferocity. He wanted to provide. Mei stayed home to raise their son. Vincent. They called him Vincent. His name meant “to conquer”. He would conquer everything, they knew.

It started small. Mei became forgetful. Vincent was a mournful child and needed constant care, and she would coddle him, but then one day out of the blue she let him cry and cry. Grimoire came home to her sitting on the bed looking haggard and worn, staring into space. He thought it was post partum depression. Vincent was not an easy baby to care for. He seemed inconsolable at times. Others, he would lay where you put him, quiet, big red eyes staring, as if knowing all. 

The Valentine men all had red eyes. 

Grimoire had red eyes. His father. His grandfather. His great grandfather. They all had red eyes. 

Vincent looked like a perfect melding of Mei and Grimoire. He had her deep black hair. He was born with a lot of it. His eyes were round but with the faintest hint of an almond shape. He had her lips. Her nose. But there was no mistaking he was Grimoire’s with those unusual red eyes.

It was a slow decline. 

Grimoire watched as she became a husk of what she once was.

The doctors said it was cancer. The news was at once a relief to Grimoire and a huge strain on his heart. There was a name to what she was ailing from, but it wasn’t a name he wanted to hear. 

When she died, it was a cold rainy day. Vincent was five. It broke Grimoire’s heart to see him struggle with death. He knew he would remember—would remember the slow walk to the coffin, the pew, the body inside that was both his mother and not his mother. 

Grimoire hated to see him in his little suit. 

Grimoire couldn’t look at him. He looked too much like her. 

But those eyes. 

Those eyes were like a confrontation with himself. 

He couldn’t stand it.

So he didn’t.

He hired people to take care of Vincent when he was away at work. He sent him to fancy schools. It all amounted to the same thing—other people were raising his son.

But Grimoire was lost in grief. He locked himself in his study, quiet eyes staring, his work spread around him. That he understood.

The first signs that Vincent was not okay started to show. He was an angry child. He got into fights at school. 

Grimoire took him hunting to get the anger out. It worked. In bursts. He was a good shot, and he could focus in ways he couldn’t otherwise.

Then he got expelled the first time. He’d been so upset, so inconsolable that Grimoire thought it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. 

Vincent was silent and angry at the world. It all started that day when he knelt at that pew and looked into his dead mother’s face. “She’s sleeping”, someone said kindly. He had balled his little fists up and shouted then. “She’s dead!” he had screamed. And then, just like that, he was silent.

The day Veld took Vincent away, Grimoire felt fucking relief. He felt terrible. His son, and he felt relief at having him taken away.

He looked so much like her and he was so very angry at the world. 

The Turks would train that anger. Channel it in ways he couldn’t. But still, he felt terrible.

As he lay dying, he saw her face and his overlaid. He saw his failures. His grief. 

“Tell my son,” he rasped. “Tell my son I love him.”

He had uttered those words so few times and he regretted it in that moment, but it was too late.


End file.
